CCA: Archaeology of the Digital

Archaeology of the Digital

7 May–13 October 2013

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) is hosting a new exhibition Archaeologyof the Digital which delves into the beginnings and the establishment of digital tools for design, mainly the  conceptualization, visualization and production at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. This is the first in a series of activities at the CCA that is concerned with the study, preservation, and presentation of the digital in architecture.

The exhibition is curated by an architect Greg Lynn. Both the exhibition and the related publication were chosen to be object-based investigations of four pivotal projects which established distinct directions in the architecture’s use of digital tools:

- Lewis Residence by Frank Gehry (1985–1995)

- Peter Eisenman‘s Frankfurt Biozentrum (1987)

- Chuck Hoberman‘s Expanding Sphere (1992)

- Shoei Yoh‘s roof structures for Odawara Gymnasium (1991) and Galaxy Toyama Gymnasium (1992)

The CCA Director and Chief Cutrator Mirko Zardini stated:

"Archaeology of the Digital also suggests a great sense of loss marked by the fact that most of the digital material produced for these projects is gone. The imminent danger of losing even more records compelled us to take a first step towards collecting, documenting, and making them accessible."

This project represents the first step in the CCA’s strategic objective of creating a collection of digital architecture.

Captions of the photo montage above

From left to right: 

Frank O. Gehry, Lewis Residence, Lyndhurst, Ohio: Study model of the entry hall (detail). 1989 –1995. Image provided by Gehry Partners, LLP 

Peter Eisenman, Eisenman/Robertson Architects, Biozentrum, Biology Center for the J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Schematic representation of a DNA sequence (detail), 1987. Peter Eisenman fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture 

Chuck Hoberman Hoberman Associates, Expanding aluminum sphere, partially deployed (detail), 1991. © Walter Wick 

Shoei Yoh + Architects, Galaxy Toyama, Gymnasium, Imizu, Toyama, Japan: Experiment of photoelasticity for the roof (detail), 1990 –1992 © Shoei Yoh + Architects